Colocation

What is Colocation?
Colocation allows you to place your server in a rack in our data center and share our bandwidth as your own. It generally costs more than standard web hosting, but much less than the cost of a comparable amount of bandwidth into your place of business, along with the power required to run and effectively and consistently cool the equipment.
Once you have a server set up, you physically bring it to our location and install it in a rack. We provide IPs, bandwidth and power to your server. Once it’s up and running, you access it much like you would access a web site on a hosting provider. The difference being that you own the hardware.
With colocation, you can reduce your traffic back-haul costs and free up internal networks for other uses. Moreover, by outsourcing network traffic to a colocation service provider with greater bandwidth capacity, web site and server access speeds should improve considerably.
With IT and communications facilities in safe, secure hands, you can enjoy less latency and the freedom to focus on your core business.

COLOCATION VS. DEDICATED SERVER
There is one key difference between dedicated servers and colocation servers. Dedicated servers tend to be owned and rented out, while a colocation server is one that you own.
If you do not already have a server or a rack, we can assist you in determining your server needs. You can also purchase one though us.

Who Needs Colocation?
This is a question that is sometimes difficult to answer. Individuals who run small sites for personal use or blogs probably do not need the level of service provided by colocation and are better off with web hosting.
If, however, the server needs to be more robust than what is provided by standard web hosting, colocation is often the best option. This is usually the case for large enterprises. Colocation is also a great option for small businesses that want to have a fairly large web presence but do not want to have to deal with the hassle of a large amount of items such as network connections.
There are also those who benefit from colocation by allowing us to host their POS server. They chose colocation due to a lack of space, reliable power and effective cooling at their place of business.

Advantages of Colocation
The cost of bandwidth per Mbps is traditionally lower. Instead of paying for the pipe to your location, you can use the same money to purchase more bandwidth in a location with better redundancy. Colocation facilities usually have better outage protection. In addition to your UPS, we have a large gas generator to power the entire data center in the case of an outage. You own the server. You can upgrade it at any time without having to wait for someone else to do it. You own the software and decide what software in installed and when. If you move, you can leave the servers up the entire time. No paying for additional lines at a new facility or outages while moving the server(s). Colocation provides physical security for your equipment and data due to the limited access to the data center. We offer administration service by qualified staff and engineers if needed.

Managed Colocation vs. Unmanaged Colocation
If you have decided to go with colocation for your server, the first decision that must be made is whether to use a managed colocation service or unmanaged. This can have a significant impact on things such as how much maintenance will need to be done be the customer versus the provider, what things can be run on the server and pricing.

MANAGED COLOCATION
With managed colocation, we generally take the responsibility of providing any software upgrades to the provided applications on the server and general maintenance such as reboots, hardware issues and any backups they may include.
This level of service is particularly useful to those individuals who are not very technically inclined or do not have the time or resources to handle the more mundane troubleshooting and maintenance.
There are restrictions to using such a service however. You still own the server and any hardware or software expenses are still covered by you. The managed server only allows those supported applications to be updated and maintained. If a specialized operating system or software application is needed for the server, but is traditionally unsupported by us, we will need to discuss the options to see if we are able to support it.
And, while managed colocation is more expensive than unmanaged, it will save you the headache of trying to get your server to work if there are any problems.

UNMANAGED COLOCATION
If you want to have control over the configuration and use of the server, unmanaged colocation is the best choice. This is very different from the managed services, though.
You are required to manage all of the hardware and software on your own. This allows for much greater flexibility in what can be done, but has the drawback of more work by you. It will be your duty to take care of all upgrades, patches, configuration, security and fixing any problems.
Of course, in either situation, you are bound to our service agreements. We do ask that certain things not be hosted on the server. These items include pornography and unrequested mass e-mailing (or SPAM).